Tonight, Ezekiel practiced and played football with his team, as he has done for the past 3 weeks. Tonight, he did great. He listened to his coaches, cheered on his teammates, and played hard for his team. He even scored a hilarious touchdown that my sister called the “taking-everyone-on-a-tour-of-the-field” play. He outran everyone as the running back to score his touchdown. Proud mama moments.

I got home from work tonight, and Dave told me that Simon shared a story in front of his whole daycare class today during his sharing time. It was this – “dis mohning, Ezekiel got in big twouboh (trouble) from Mommy. She got wully loud at him”. There are no secrets in the Ribar house. Not so proud mama moment. At least his teacher got a good laugh out of Simon’s choice of “sharing”.

Simon is one funny little mister. He’s not the same kind of loud, physical comedian as his brother. He’s got his own kind of humor. Often, it’s his literal interpretation of something we’ve just said. He’s funny without even realizing it. One day, Dave said, “Simon, I’ve got a cup of milk with your name on it!” Simon took the cup from him, looked very closely at it, and said (with complete sincerity), “Daddy, I don’t see my name on dis cup!”

He is very deliberate with his speech. People are often astounded at the extent of his vocabulary. Every once in a while, he will have a funny way of saying words. I never correct him, because I love those little words. He calls pancakes “pampakes”. He calls porta-potties “toila-potties”. Adorbs.

Today, Dave took the boys on a hiking adventure by the river in our town. They saw a man hiking, and stopped to chat with him. When they finished chatting, Simon called back, “See you later! It was nice to meet you, Mr. Pat!” And today at church, there was a man talking with us and asked Simon when his birthday is. Simon finished answering and said, “And what about when your birthday is?!” He is so sweet, and interested in others. I love watching this boy live life.

Today was another crazy day in the Ribar house. I picked up the boys today, and soon after we were home, Simon came to me in the kitchen and said, “Mama? Der is a rock in my ear”.

Let’s back this up a couple of weeks. One Saturday morning in August, we were enjoying a relaxing morning at home. Suddenly Ezekiel comes upstairs from where he and Simon were playing to tattle on his little brother. He told me, “Mooo-ooom, Simon stuck a bead up his nose”. I came downstairs to a sheepish-looking Simon. I looked up his nose, and sure enough, there was a purple perler bead stuck up his nose. (Those beads you can melt to create cool shapes).

Dave and I tried everything we could think of to get the bead out of Simon’s nose – tweezers, blowing into a Kleenex. I even googled it, and found someone who had duct-taped the tube of a pen to the end of a vacuum hose. We gave it a try, but Simon wouldn’t stop moving and sobbing through that ordeal, plus with the hole in the bead, it wasn’t getting sucked out of there.

I took him into our local urgent care/ER, where the staff there were able to use a longer tweezers, positioned his head just right and pulled the bead out. The NP had a talk with him about not sticking objects in his nose or ears.

Rewind three more months. I got a call from daycare and had to leave work to pick up Simon. Why? He had stuck 4-5 tiny pebbles in his ear. During nap time. He brushed his hand along the floor, felt the pebbles and decided the best place for those rocks was in his ears. Thankfully, those came out on their own without having to go to the doctor.

Fast forward back to this afternoon. I sternly told him, “Simon Seul-gi, you better be kidding. There better not be a rock in your ear!” He started crying. I put my phone on flashlight mode, and sure enough, there was a tiny pebble stuck down in his ear.

I didn’t dare try to get it out with a tweezers or anything, for fear of pushing it in further. Thankfully, the handy dandy pen-tube-vacuum-hose contraption was still in the closet. I got it out and told Simon to stay still. After a nervous giggle and a stern reminder to stay still, I stuck the contraption over his ear hole. A minute later, I heard a clink, and the rock was out of his ear. Thank God. We did not need another bill for these kinds of shenanigans!

But wait. That wasn’t the end of our exciting day. Just a few minutes ago, I heard Ezekiel stumbling around downstairs. I went down to check on him and walked into his room. He wasn’t in his bed. I looked over and saw him with his shorts pulled down, peeing into one of his toy drawers. Fast asleep. I couldn’t stop laughing and groaning at the thought of having to clean the puddles out of that drawer.